Disgrace that was: the ABC debate

[Thorgrim]

ABC, as it tried to claim in the past, is trying to copy Fox News to catch some of it's "rating success"

Well they're getting some starts in the "right" direction, with many Americans, especially Democrats, unsure how the candidates going to respond to higher unemployment, the recession, housing crisis, universal health care, even immigration, or what exactly they plan to do the first 100 days of office

What do we get instead? A debate designed to make McCain look good:

Here is what the elitists at ABC imagine Americans care about.

Process (VP running mate)
Bitter
Bitter/Process (can Obama win?)
Process (can Obama win?)
Process (can Clinton win?)
Wright
Wright
Wright/patriotism
Wright
Wright/patriotism
Bosnia/Clinton's honesty
Clinton’s honesty
Flag pin/patriotism
Ayers/patriotism
Iraq (would you ignore commanders?)
Iraq (do you know better than commanders?)
Iraq (would you ignore commanders?)
Iran/Israel (Iran will threaten to use nukes)
Pledge no tax increases (with McCain attack)
Capital gains tax rates
Gun registration
Guns/ D.C. law
Affirmative action
Gas prices
Foreign oil
Process (how would you use GWB?)
Process (superdelegates)
~ categories courtesy of georgia10, with slight modification

It seems more and more of the media is taking up the tabloid angle...expect to hear less about McCain's immigration policy or Obama's Health Care plan...no, this election will be about whether Obama had a homosexual relationship with a driver who did cocaine with him

Luckily, Obama seems to be immune from all of this, his numbers have actually GONE UP in the past few weeks

He's tied or leading in all the polls except Rasmussen, which has had an extremely bias towards GW's approval and now it seems McCain's election chances, but even there he has narrowed it to a 4pt MoE situation

In Michigan he's got back the lead and when he's actually able to campaign there he'll bring the Democrats back home with some 8 months of intra-party healing

He continues to hold Kerry-trouble spots of Iowa and Wisconsin throughout the months, has taken a nice lead in PA, and only needs one more state to be winning even at this extremely low point

Now news today that he's in the MoE in Ohio, and Clinton has a 11pt lead over McCain...which is almost sure to transfer to Obama (Obama's lack of lead is due entirely to Democratic defectors...Ohio is not known for a large portion of Reagan Democrats [they became republicans or regretted their vote come 1988/1992] so all that is needed is some party healing...besides I refuse to believe "reagan Democrats" flock to Hillary but would refuse Obama after 8 months of campaigning)

Looks like this election is going to come down to OH and PA, with the rest in place for so long it would take one of the candidates to continually screw up (or for the economy/iraq to get worse) to seriously change things

And those states look good for Obama's hundreds of millions of dollars from 1.5 million regular americans to increase, if McCain tries to focus there, Obama can go out towards Colorado, Virginia, Missouri, even North Carolina and other "red" states to make sure McCain covers his bases and in the end is simply outspent by a huge margin and has gained the ability to deliver great counterpunches in the face of extreme challenges

[Scrum]

YouTube Video

Yeah, that "debate" was pretty pathetic. The first hour was just one big attempt to catch someone in a gotcha! moment.

[Thorgrim]

some gotcha is at least somewhat respectable like "you did a 180 on your tax plan!" etc...but that wasn't here

it was stupid shit about flag pins and dead shit like wright

look at ABC give McCain and other republicans a reacharound in their 2008 debate:
ABC News: TRANSCRIPT: Republican Debate

liberal media huh?

[JaJae]

I was going to make a thread about this debate. It was definitely pretty shitty. The overwhelming view of this debate is that ABC dropped the ball.

By midafternoon Thursday, more than 15,600 comments were posted on ABC News' Web site, the tone overwhelmingly negative.

Ratings, criticism big for ABC presidential debate: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

As stated above the first hour was nothing other than scandals. I'm pretty sure I even heard Gibson at one point sigh at Obama when he was answering a "gotcha" question in a way Gibson didn't approve of. It was definitely strange behavior.

Also, recently George Stephanopolis was on Hannity's radio show and he literally was taking notes and some of his questions came from that phone call, such as the Ayers question.

They shouldn't be taking question for a Democratic primary debate from someone like Hannity.

Now, I don't necessarily mind ABC airing the dirty laundry of the candidates. This is what happens when you have one party with a selected candidate and one party with two people in the running battling each other. They hurt each other. I definitely think the first half of the debate was to Hillary's advantage. Obama was hit repeatedly and they refused to let the issues go when discussing Wright, Ayers, Patriotism, Flag Pin, Bitterness, etc. Hillary was only really hit with Bosnia. Anyone who's been following the campaign knows that Obama doesn't have 5 times as many scandals as Hillary, yet they focused on Obama's faults by far more than Hillary's. It seemed as if they were trying to keep the primary going.

The second half of the debate was also a complete train wreck. Normally during debates the moderators ask questions and allow the candidates to discuss their answers in back and forth bantering. But in this it seemed as if the moderators had their mind made up on what the answer should be and if they didn't give them their answer by God they were gonna force it out of them or keep hacking at them until they got at least a "gotcha."

[Scrum]

And I think it was also pretty silly that Stephanopoulos moderated at all.

He was a member of the Clinton administration and should have at least disclosed that from the beginning. Couldn't they find someone without such a direct link?

[motivez]

Huge waste of time for the American people..

There's not that much time left before people have to decide who to vote for in the primary, and they wasted what's probably the last debate (afaik) on completely trivial stuff instead of the substantive issues

And I agree with Scrum, someone who worked for Bill Clinton shouldn't be involved at all in the debate..

[SoFlaJDM]

This was a complete joke. Obama's improving numbers in the polls show that the voters are tired of these tired old games. I can't wait till he's nominated

rasmussen has proven itself lately to be pretty shitty due to their obvious right lean as well

[David Octavius]

I didn't see the debates but I was watching the daily show a few nights back and they aired a clip of woman (who is supposed to represent the "average" Pennsylvanian) asking Obama why he doesn't wear a flag pin, adding "not that I'm questioning your patriotism"

Unfortunately, petty shit like this works; Stuff no one notices except political scoundrels who are experts at framing innocuous and meaningless things into an emotional response that appeals to our worst qualities, blinding us from our reason. And in this state of being blind who do we seek for guidance? The scoundrels themselves. Reason is their enemy and to discuss it in its terms is too complex and unpredictable - emotional appeals, however, are easy so long as you don't mind having a few dirt spots on your conscience.

I've noticed that the people who seem the best at trying to find character flaws where there are none, or who find pleasure in destroying a person just because there is a difference in ideology - are worse characters of them all, no honor or ethics. They care not for their country, just only their fame and their beliefs. I hope one day America wakes up to this fact and turn against the scoundrels who are rotting this nation from the inside, the prosperity and security of America depends on it.

[6SpeedTA95]

I thought this was a good debate, I was glad they were focusing on huge negatives like the economy and iraq and pinning the candidates down on their views. Thats something that needs to happen if you want to be president of the country.

This idea that asking questions iwth only positive answers or asking softball questions is good for the country is beyond me. I actually thought it was one of ABC's better debates.

I agree that Stephanopoulos should not have been in the debate due to his ties with clinton in the past.

I think that Obama won the debate pretty easily but I think the tough questioning was welcome relief compared to the softball I'm only going ot focus on easy and positive questions/answers that we usually see in these debates.

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by Scrum

And I think it was also pretty silly that Stephanopoulos moderated at all.

He was a member of the Clinton administration and should have at least disclosed that from the beginning. Couldn't they find someone without such a direct link?

he should disclose that everytime he chimes in about the democratic race

[TankRizzo]

I don't see why Obama was bitching about it. The first 45 minutes were more or less about him and he had plenty of time to give answers to questions that he had more than enough time to rehearse and rehash his answers for the debate. Then when it came time to talk about raising taxes and gun control he was all "uhhhh"s and "ahhhh"s.